Catholic World News News Feature

Archbishop Baselios, head of India's Syro-Malankara Church, dies suddenly January 18, 2007

Major Archbishop Cyril Mar Baselios, the head of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, died suddenly of a heart attack on January 18.

The Indian prelate, who was 71 years old, had been admitted into a hospital the previous day for what were expected to be routine tests and treatment for diabetes.

Archbishop Baselios had led the Trivandrum archdiocese on India’s Kerela state since 1995. In February 2005, Pope John Paul II raised the Syro-Malankara Church to the status of a “Major Archepiscopal Church,” ranking just below a patriarchate.

The Syro-Malankara Church has about 450,000 faithful, virtually all living in five eparchies (dioceses) in India. The Syro-Malankara community, centered primarily in the western state of Kerela, has proved to be a major source of priestly and religious vocations; there are currently more than 600 seminarians, and over 2,000 women religious in 17 congregations.

The Syro-Malankars, who trace their religious heritage back to the evangelizing efforts of the St. Thomas the apostle, were among the many Eastern Christians who broke with Rome over the Christological disputes at the Council of Chalcedon. After generations of alliance with the Syrian Orthodox Church, some of these "Thomas Christians" sought to restore full communion with Rome, and in the 1930s the Syro-Malankara Catholic hierarchy was recognized by the Holy See. Archbishop Baselios is a former president of the Indian Catholic bishops' conference, which includes the hierarchies of the 3 Catholic rites in India: Latin, Syro-Malankara, and Syro-Malabar.